In a New Land: A Comparative View of Immigration (review)

Foner anchors her study of recent immigration patterns in New York City, but places her analysis in a larger transnational comparative framework by examining trends among particular groups alongside immigrants in London and elsewhere. She focuses most extensively on immigrants from Jamaica and elsewhere in the Caribbean and illustrates how their experiences have differed as immigrants in New York and London, the cultural capitals of two nations. She offers readers yet another comparative dimension by relating recent immigration trends to historical ones, much as she did in From Ellis Island to JFK: New York's Two Great Waves of Immigration. The 2000 U.S. census reveals that over ten percent of the U.S. population was born outside the United States, a figure that is roughly comparable to the 1920's. In some cities, the percentage is significantly higher. Foner notes that in recent decades the immigration process has been influenced by the increasing availability of less expensive air travel, of affordable international phone calls, and the spread of the internet. A larger percentage of global immigrants today are highly educated and affluent and many are now permitted to maintain dual citizenship. Women constitute an increasing percentage of immigrants compared to previous eras. Moreover, high intermarriage rates among some ethnic groups suggest that racial categories will be far more fluid than in the past. Foner observes that while her fellow sociologists have tended to avoid placing immigration issues in historical perspective, historians have conversely been reluctant to demonstrate the ways in which immigration trends inform current debates about immigration. She argues that only by doing both can one accurately understand which aspects of immigration are unique to a particular era, city, or nation.

A major strength of Foner's book is her examination of how American racial ideologies and events have influenced the opportunities available to newer immigrants, their inter-group relationships and their economic and social positions in their adopted city. In New York, for example, Jamaican immigrants have negotiated their socioeconomic status in a city with a significant native-born African-American population, a long legacy of immigration, and the ability to return frequently to their home country. In 2000, over 28 percent of the black population of New York City was non-native born, having arrived mostly from Africa or Caribbean countries including Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Because of the long history of American racial prejudice, immigrants found themselves identified in a racial context that was quite different than in London or elsewhere.

Foner discusses how New York immigrants' socioeconomic status has surpassed that of native-born African-Americans. As a result, new non-white immigrants sometimes distinguish themselves from African-Americans or other groups to avoid the socioeconomic penalties associated with racism. Given that many black immigrants have arrived following the civil rights movement, they have accrued some benefits arising from that movement, including a stronger urban political base, affirmative action programs and access to unionized jobs in the city. In some cases, employers have demonstrated a preference for hiring West Indians over African-Americans, in part because they are perceived as less likely to complain about workplace conditions. Like Jewish immigrants of previous generations, they have enrolled in the City University of New York system as a pathway to upward mobility. Foner characterizes the relationship between native-born African Americans and Caribbean immigrants as "a complex combination of conflict and cooperation and of distancing and identification." [p. 54] She also discusses the debate over the future of second generation immigrants from Jamaica. She concludes that it remains unclear whether they will be upwardly mobile, like white immigrants of prior generations, or whether as residents of black neighborhoods, and as students in low achieving public schools, second generation Americans of Jamaican descent will be subject to the same issues facing poor, native-born blacks in New York City.

But, while the concept of segmented assimilation might prove an appropriate model to describe Jamaicans in New York...